The Campaign For DA

3.04.2007

Saw this in Dallas Morning News regarding a provision in the 1836 Constitution of the Republic of Texas (stay with me here):

No free person of African descent ... shall be permitted to reside permanently in the republic, without the consent of congress."

Now that is holding the black man down.

And if you were black and wanted to voluntarily become the slave of a particular master, just get the district clerk, district judge, and the district attorney involved:

"Whenever any free person of African descent ... desires to choose a master, such person may file a petition in the district court of the county in which he or she resides ..." The article explained: "After posting a notice on the courthouse door for four weeks, the district clerk would summon both parties to court, where the district attorney (for $10) would examine the would-be slave and the chosen master. The judge could then approve the transaction if he detected no fraud."

A $10 fee to the D.A. in 1836? Now that's shocking. Oh, yeah....and that slavery stuff is shocking, too.

But, for all you defenders of the South, who would say that the pre-civil war South was trapped in an economic system predicated upon slavery which the Southern gentry were working gradually towards removing ..... HERE is very clear evidence to the contrary.

Spanish and Mexican law forbade slavery. So the Texas colonists who rose up in rebellion against the despotism of Santa Anna had deliberately migrated to a non-slaveholding territory, and had been doing just fine there, economically. Upon assertion of Texas independence, they could easily have chosen to retain that aspect of Mexican law. That they did not, speaks unfortunate volumes about the real white Southern mindset of the time.